Belonging: The Story of the Jews: When Words Fail (1492-1900)

Belonging is a magnificent cultural history abundantly alive with energy, character and colour. It spans centuries and continents; from the Jews' expulsion from Spain in 1492, it navigates miracles and massacres, wandering, discrimination, harmony and tolerance, to the brink of the 20th century and, it seems, a point of profound hope. It tells the stories not just of rabbis and philosophers but of a poetess in the ghetto of Venice; a boxer in Georgian England; a general in Ming China; and an opera composer in 19th-century Germany.

SAS Ghost Patrol is the explosive true story of the day in 1942 when the SAS donned Nazi uniforms to perpetrate the most audacious and daring mission of the war. Beyond top secret, deniable in the extreme (and of course enjoying Churchill's enthusiastic blessing), this is one of the most remarkable stories of wartime lawlessness, eccentricity and raw courage in the face of impossible odds - a thoroughly British undertaking.

The Butchers of Berlin

Berlin, 1943. August Schlegel lives in a world full of questions with no easy answers. Why is he being called out on a homicide case when he works in financial crimes? Why did the old Jewish soldier with an Iron Cross shoot the block warden in the eye, then put a bullet through his own head? Why does Schlegel persist with the case when no one cares because the Jews are all being shipped out anyway? And why should Eiko Morgen, wearing the dreaded black uniform of the SS, be assigned to work with him?

Shadow Warriors of World War II: The Daring Women of the OSS and SOE

They were told that the only crime they must never commit was to be caught. Women of enormous cunning and strength of will, the Shadow Warriors' stories have remained largely untold - until now. In a dramatic tale of espionage and conspiracy in World War II, Shadow Warriors of World War II unveils the history of the courageous women who volunteered to work behind enemy lines.

The House by the Lake

In the summer of 1993, Thomas Harding travelled to Germany with his grandmother to visit a house by a lake. It had been a holiday home for her family, that she had been forced to leave as the Nazis swept to power. As he began to piece together the lives of the five families who had lived, he realised that this house had witnessed violence, betrayals and murders, had withstood the trauma of a world war and the dividing of a nation.

Midnight in Berlin

Berlin, 1938: Newly appointed military attaché Noel Macrae and his extrovert wife, Primrose, arrive at the British embassy. Prime Minister Chamberlain is intent on placating Nazi Germany, but Macrae is less so. Gathering vital intelligence, Macrae is drawn to Kitty Schmidt's Salon - a Nazi bordello - and its enigmatic Jewish hostess, Sara Sternschein, who is a treasure trove of knowledge about the Nazi hierarchy in a city of lies, spies and secrets. Does she hold the key to thwarting Hitler?

michael says:"listen of the year "

Publisher's Summary

In the upper reaches of the Loire lies the secluded village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. The whole village was honoured not just by the French state but with the extremely rare distinction of being named Righteous Among Nations by the people of Israel. How they earned this is one of the great modern stories of heroism and courage.

The community pulled off the astonishing feat of saving the lives of 5,000 men, women and children whose very existence was deemed unpalatable by the Nazi occupiers and their Vichy stooges. Of those saved, approximately 3,500 were of Jewish descent. They achieved this through a long-running battle of nerves, keeping their heads down and pulling together.